


At the end

by kittenteeth



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky calling himself an it, Emotionally numb and constipated bucky, M/M, idek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:07:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4585419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittenteeth/pseuds/kittenteeth





	At the end

The ceiling is white.

It’s a soft white. Tiles in uniform, even lines that go on forever. It’s actually kind of grey right now, the pre morning light filtering in and coloring everything in a bluish tint, precursor to a new day.

It doesn’t really know what to do with that information. It notices things now, because it can. It has the free time to notice everything. The ceiling is white and it’s a new fact. It keeps that fact tucked away for later. For what, it’s not really sure.

It’s in Steve Rogers room. Staring at Steve Rogers white ceiling. It’s in here because Steve Rogers wanted it to be. It knows they know each other. (Knew each other.) But it doesn’t know why or how or what it means when it looks at the blond. It doesn’t like it, the thick syrupy warmth in his chest. It’s the same when he looks at Natasha. There’s something there, it can feel it. Right behind its eyes. It’s there. Something- It makes its forehead and its head hurt and it has to look away. It’s like looking at the sun. 

Steve Rogers is asleep on its chest. It feels nothing about this. It’s another fact. It almost wants to feel. Steve Rogers stirs, always sleeps through the night. It wonders what it’s like, sleeping peacefully. Steve Rogers face is pushed into its bad shoulder. (There’s nothing bad about it, Steve insists.) He’s murmuring something against warm skin and it doesn’t quite hear what Steve Rogers says, just feels lips moving against where scarred skin meets the ugly burrow of metal. 

(i missed you. i missed you so much, buck. oh, god. I thought you were dead- I thought-)

It runs a hand up Steve Rogers back, tracing over skin like a map, its fingers trying to remember, to feel, something. It’s not disappointed when it feels nothing.

At first, when it came back (got caught? got tired? surrendered? ) things were different. People wanted to talk, to learn, to understand. They all had a million questions but it didn’t have the answers. It was a shell. A hollow cracked shell nothing inside but the soft hum of who it was once was. A phantom disguised as a person. He knew nothing, felt nothing and was at a loss without an objective. No purpose, no plan. It has no use.

At first, they told it that it- he- should be relieved. He was free. He was no longer slave to HYDRA. He is his own person once again. Freedom is weird.

Free will is over rated, it thinks.

Steve Rogers finished speaking. Finished whispering secrets against permanently scarred skin. It didn’t hear any of what Steve Rogers said but it doesn’t think it would have mattered even if he did. They had done this once or twice before, Steve Rogers dragging it into his room- telling it about “Bucky.” The name means nothing but it knows the name means everything. It listens to the stories. They aren’t good or bad. They’re facts and he takes them in as just that. They never affect him but sometimes it feels like they might. It makes it want to be affected, it thinks it wants to remember.

(It’s not supposed to want anything.)

Sometimes it thinks about Steve Rogers, thinks about that tight lipped smile when they pass in the hallway. It wonders if it should feel something. It doesn’t feel at all. It does, however, want to make its handler happy. What it was made to do. To serve, to kill, to maim, destroy, disembowel, hurt. It is a weapon, and maybe not even a living one.

Serve. Perform. Obey. Give. Give. Give. It wants nothing in return.

So of course it doesn’t say no when Steve Rogers sits down next to him, it doesn’t say no when they lay together. It means nothing to it. It has no opinions on this one way or another. Steve Rogers wants to lie with it. Another meaningless fact.

At one point it writes these facts down in a little book Steve Rogers gave to it. He said writing things down helped him sort this new life out. Steve Rogers has a little book of his own. It almost wonders what’s in it. 

Facts:  
-the city id loud and bright and mean  
-the crisp breezy air in the early morning is the freshest  
-the door to the bathroom on the 2nd floor gets stuck  
-there are four paintings in his room, they are nice to look at  
-tony spends more for the more hardy furniture even though it looks more like decorations than something to sit on  
-Steve Rogers prefers sleeping next to someone than sleeping alone  
-the ceiling is white

It keeps the facts cleanly listed, they have no purpose or meaning but its all it has that truly belongs to it.

(Steve belongs to him.) It has nothing.


End file.
